Rollin' in the Deep

Hey guys.  I'm gonna go ahead and get deep on ya here.  And throwing in an Adele reference can't hurt, she's my latest go to for music.

Anyway, this past week has been very exhausting.  Pregnancy wise we had a check-up on Wednesday and everything looks great!  I'm dialated 1cm (which actually means nothing, but it sounds fun and exciting so I might as well brag about it, huh?) and his heartbeat is still 'perfect'.   I asked the doctor to predict his current weight and she said that if he was born that day he'd be about 7lbs 3oz.  I mean, that's a guess, but she's measured a lot of tummies and felt a lot of uteruses so I think she might know what she's talking about.  That was at 37 weeks.  I thought that was a great size so I was trying to convince God to allow him to come that day.  No such luck.  I pray every night that God lets us have our baby.  This waiting game is getting hard!  Especially since we have almost everything we need now for him.  We had 2 baby showers last weekend, which I need to tell you all about.  I have lots of pics!  We even got our travel system which includes our awesome and super light-weight stroller and our car seat/carrier.  It could not be more us as it is black with green trim. 

So in the midst of being overly excited about our baby, I got a call from my mom.  It was Thursday night around 7:30 and she called to ask if Chris and I were feeling better.  We'd been sick all week with really bad colds.  We said we still felt sick and then she said she had a favor to ask.  She wanted us to meet her at the hospital because my dad had been in a bicycle accident.  My mom was so calm on the phone, I don't know how, because she didn't know many details about the accident at the time.  We of course said we'd meet her and we flew out of the house and headed to the hospital. 

The drive was terrible, as you can imagine.  I had no idea if I was going to see my dead dad, my paralyzed dad, my dad with scrapes and bruises.  I just had no idea!  Thank God the drive took less than 10 minutes.  We ended up beating the ambulance.  When I saw my mom come in I asked if she thought he was ok.  This was her recount of the story:

My mom had gone to my sister's soccer game.  Like always, if it was a nice day, my dad had planned to ride his bike out to meet her.  So my mom was at the field when all of a sudden she heard her name being called by a stranger in a van.  The man said that her husband had been in a bicycle accident and was at an intersection nearby.  She immediately got in her car and followed the man to the scene.  It was not too far away from the field, in a neighborhood.  When she got to the scene, she saw my dad sitting on the curb bandaged up and about to get into the ambulance, which was already there.  She was told that he needed to be taken in because he had memory loss, but he was at least speaking.  That was a miracle!  The witnesses said my dad had swurved to avoid being hit by a car and went straight over his bike, head first.  My dad does not always wear a helmet and unfortunately this was one of those times.  Apparently my dad had enough memory at the time to tell someone to go get his wife who was at the soccer field nearby.  Another miracle! 

At the hospital, we saw the ambulance arrive.  It was one of those times that I don't ever want to relive.  It was like the moment of truth, one I didn't want to face unless there was good news.  When they rushed him in, we all just wanted to know his condition.  I will never forget the moment when we were in the waiting room and the doors opened for us to go see him and I heard his voice.  It was the best relief ever!  We went in to see him and his head was bandaged up, but every other part of his body seemed fine.  I went to say hi and he knew who I was!  Another huge relief!  But I knew we weren't totally in the clear because head injuries are always scary...and unpredicatable.  He needed a CT scan of his head to make sure there was no bleeding or swelling in his brain.  And the way he was acting really scared me.

My dad kept repeating a few questions over and over and it's just so hard to see someone who has always been the rock of the family, the one who always knows it all, so vulnerable and hurt.  He asked a thousand times, "Hey guys, where was I going?"  "What was I doing?"  We answered those questions at least every 5 minutes or so.  Each time he had no idea.  In between the questions he kept reassuring us that nothing else hurt, except his right arm.  "You know, I just have some pain in my right arm"  was another quote he threw in every 5 minutes.  It's like he was on constant repeat with the same stuff.  It was actually really scary because he had no idea he was repeating himself.  Another thing on constant repeat, "Hey Chris, how are my pupils?"  My dad, even after this horrible event, knew enough to know that if his pupils were dialated that would mean a sign of bleeding and swelling in the brain.  My awesome husband, every five minutes per my dad's request, checked his father-in-law's pupils and reassured him that they looked fine.  For about an hour or so before getting the CT scan, this was the conversation in the room, on repeat, every five minutes:

Dad:  "Hey guys, where was I going?"
Someone (we'd take turns):  "You were going to Mary our Queen to watch Emily play soccer."
Dad: "What was I doing?"
Someone: "You were riding your bike."
Dad: "You know, I do have some pain in my right arm.   Hey Chris, how are my pupils?"
Chris:  "They look great, they're not dialated and they're the same size."

It seemed like forever before they took him to go get his scan.  It seemed even longer for the results.  Finally the doctor came back (mind you, both the doctors seeing my dad were ones he knew.  He worked with one of them at this hospital in the 80's.  When he first came in my dad goes, "Oh hey Bob, remember me, I worked here in 1989"....you can imagine our excitement at that simple phrase.)  The doctor told us that his CT was normal.  Praise God!  There was no swelling or bleeding in his brain.  He had landed on his right side, severely injuring the right side of his face and his right arm.  He had a huge wound above his right eye which was open to the skull which obviously required stitches.  On his right shoulder there was a huge bump about the size of a baseball where we think he hit part of his bike or something.  That pain on his right arm that he kept talking about did actually end up being a brake. 

At about 11pm they took him back to the ICU to be monitored for the night.  Chris and I stayed for a while and then headed back to my parent's house for the night to be with 3 of my siblings.  I barely got any sleep and in my prayers that night I did not end up including the one about me wanting my baby to come.  Instead, I told God that tonight would actually not be a good night for me to meet my baby, but I figured He already knew that.  I prayed hard that my dad's condition would stay stable and that swelling would not increase during the night.

I woke up to a text from my mom that said, "Dad is great!"  It was the best news.  I called her to get more details and she said,  "Dad is doing really good.  He woke up and remembered that he was in a bike accident.  He still doesn't remember what happened during the accident, but parts of his memory are coming back.  Here, talk to him and you'll feel a lot better."  She passed the phone to my dad and our conversation went like this:

Dad: "Hey, how are my pupils?  Where was I going?  What was I doing?  How was my CT?  You know, I'm just a little bit anmestic (he kept using that word later in the night while diagnosing himself after he realized he couldn't remember much).

Me:  DAD!

Dad:  I heard I asked those questions, but no one would give me any answers.  Why wouldn't you just tell me?  I had to keep asking!

Yep, my dad was (somewhat) back to himself.  He was able to go from the ICU straight home.  What a blessing. Which brings me full circle to that getting deep part.  You know, when I got that call from my mom and was driving to the hospital, I was trying to think of the last time I talked to my dad and what we had said.  I didn't want those to be my last words to him, no matter what they were.  Time is so precious and we really never know when we can lose someone.  Times like these really put things into perspective.  Our family got a second chance and we realize how lucky we are to still have our dad.  It could have been so different.  So much worse.  It's never silly to tell people how much you love them and to live your best life at every second.  You never know when it'll be your last.  Thank God for all the blessings you have.  Be happy and love each other.  That's what matters the most in the end.

(Hmmm, pretty convenient ending there for those people who think that the world's gonna end today.  In which case, Chris and I will be spending our last day on earth cleaning and preparing for baby.  And my sister Lauren will be spending her last day graduating from college!  Congrats Laur!!!)